BACKSTAGE WITH… Conductor Garry Walker
You’re conducting David Sawer’s The Skating Rink, an opera commissioned by Garsington. What is it about?
Based on a novel by Roberto Bolaño, the story is a sort of ‘whodunnit’. What’s interesting about the novel is the way he looks at the same situation from different perspectives, which has shaped the way the piece has been structured thematically and musically. Certain characters have their own themes, as do specific events within the opera – David Sawer has such a grasp of the form. His work deals with very primitive emotions such as jealousy, revenge, murder, corruption, which a lot of contemporary operas tend to shy away from.
Did you work closely with Sawer throughout the process?
I’ve had the score for several months, and have been working on it intensely. The main collaboration, however, has been between David and the director Stewart Laing. I respect David enormously – it really is a remarkable opera.
You have conducted at Garsington before. What do you think has given it such long-lasting success as an opera house?
The quality of the work is central, as is the variety of the programming. I conducted Janácˇek’s The Cunning Little Vixen in 2014, which was perfectly placed in Garsington’s outdoor venue, because it is very much about man’s relationship with nature and the cycle of life and death. The performance starts in the light and ends in the dark, so it was so well suited to the staging there. It was a very clever choice.